


Caesar is coming. Alexandria burns.

by ChipAndDealer



Category: Gravity Falls, Jackie Chan Adventures, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adult Dipper Pines, Adult Jade Chan, Agent Jade Chan, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Honestly I just really like JCA and there aren't enough fics for it, Hydra (Marvel), Post-Canon, Post-Canon: Gravity Falls, Post-Canon: Jackie Chan Adventures, Section Thirteen is Shield, Spies & Secret Agents, They take the stairs, Time Travel, Why all the Caesar references?, don't ask me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChipAndDealer/pseuds/ChipAndDealer
Summary: Dipper laughed, mirthlessly. "I'm saying Hydra's infiltrated the whole of Shield."Jade paused, chi blast still leveled at his head. "That's impossible.""You're threatening me with a magic lizard so I don't steal the sealed essence of a demon's powers, and you think spies infiltrating a network of spies is impossible?" She had to admit, he had a point.
Relationships: Pacifica Northwest/Dipper Pines
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Caesar is coming. Alexandria burns.

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot begin to stress how many other things I should have been doing instead of writing this, yet here it is anyway.
> 
> Crossovers gone mad. MAD, I SAY.

If there was one thing Section Thirteen never ran out of, it was paperwork. Every new employee, every shipment, every guard rotation, payment, piece of mail, new vault installation, and especially every bit of worker's compensation and psychiatry for constantly dealing with demons and dark wizards, all had a specialized form attributed to them that someone had to fill out.

Inevitably, that someone usually ended up being Jade Chan.

It wasn't that she was particularly good at filling out paperwork, though she definitely had more practice than most by that point, and she certainly didn't do it because she enjoyed it. But she had an unfortunate tendency to go off-book during missions that, while usually working out alright, caused no end of trouble for Captain Black.

Most recently it was using a cursed urn to capture a trio of ancient Aztec spirits. The protocol for that situation was 'stand down, request backup, and standby for orders,' but then that was the protocol for most things, so she'd gotten used to ignoring it by then.

Captain Black couldn't actually fire her, because calling her the best agent he had was massively underselling things. She had literally been fighting supernatural beings since childhood, after all. But assigning her paperwork she'd need to fill out before she could go out into the field again, was always a good way to show his displeasure.

Jade hated paperwork.

Which was why she was out in the halls of Section Thirteen, wandering around seeing if there were any coworkers she could bother before Captain Black found her and shoved her back into her office to finish filing R41/B: psychiatric care from close encounters with the undead, forms.

Coincidentally, she'd already done the mandatory amount of counseling for that, and frankly she wasn't very impressed. Ghosts were never really a big deal to her, she'd take them over demons any day, at least.

Spying a mailman, clipboard in hand, going office to office delivering packages, Jade swiftly adjusted her path to put her on a colission course. New recruits were the most fun to bother, but the mailroom staff were a close third after Captain Black.

"Boo," she yelled, jumping out from behind an office plant. It was childish, but Jade found the simple pleasures to be some of the best.

The mailman startled, throwing his clipboard into the air before it clattered surprisingly noisily on the carpet. At Jade's mischevious grin, though, he relaxed, bending down to pick it up again.

"Little jumpy?" Jade ribbed, looking him up and down. He had on the standard mailroom uniform, fitting well enough on his gangly form, but the hat had the brim tipped down low, completely covering his forehead and nearly his eyes, too. Could he even see like that? "Hey, you new here? Don't think I've seen you around before."

He tucked the clipboard into a slot on the package cart, beginning to push it along again, but looking at her. "Yep, just started today. Does that make you my welcoming committee?"

"Guess so." Anything was better than paperwork. She started walking along beside him as he stopped at various offices to deliver packages. "How much do you know about what we do here?"

"Oh, I've heard stories." He smiled, enigmatically. "If you're worried about my weirdness tolerance, don't be. I'm pretty sure I can handle mail." He lifted a package up and waved it gently before putting it back. "Even if some of this might be cursed."

"No, they're definitely cursed." She picked up a package at random, shaking it experimentally beside her ear. "Definitely."

The mailman laughed, shaking his head. "You're just like my sister." He held out a hand. "Dipper Pines."

"Jade Chan," she took it. "So what's your deal? You always want to be a mailman, Dipper?"

A smirk lifted his face, ever so slightly. "You'd have to ask Chutzpar about that."

"Who?"

He waved a hand. "Sorry, just a little joke. I think being a mailman works out for me. Everyone has things they want, and they've gotta get to them somehow, right?"

Jade pursed her lips. The phrasing on that was off, somehow, it set her instincts on edge. "So, you mentioned a 'weirdness tolerance,' before. I take it you have some experience?"

He shrugged. "Hard not to, by now. Even if I didn't have a few supernatural run-ins when I was a kid, I was in New York."

When, exactly, he was in New York, didn't need to be elaborated. The invasion. Jade scratched the back of her neck, uncomfortably. "Oh, that sucks."

"It could have been worse. I didn't lose anyone, thankfully, so there's really not much I can complain about." He sighed. "Just one more apocalypse to add to the pile."

After everything she'd been through, Jade couldn't help but sympathize. "You've been in the danger zone for more than one? That's some real bad luck, guy."

"Maybe," he hedged. "But after a while it starts to feel like I do it to myself on purpose: walking into apocalypses. It's not, like, a death wish thing, I'm just an idiot."

He lowered his arm and a bracelet slid out of his sleeve and into view, light chi bleeding from it. Her eyes narrowed. Even among the other agents, chi protection was only doled out in the most extreme situations, and those were recovered as soon as the mission was over. So why was some random mailman who just started that day wearing one? "Nice bracelet," she called out.

"Thanks," he mumbled, shifting so it slid back into his sleeve. "A gift from my grunkle."

"Grunkle?" Jade echoed.

"It's a portmanteau of great-uncle. My sister and I came up with it when we were kids." He kept walking.

Proper protocol for suspicious individuals in Section Thirteen was to inform security, request backup, and stand down for orders.

"What does it do?" She asked, instead.

He froze.

"It's a totem, right? Protection from a dark force? If it was dark chi, I'd already be laying the smackdown on you, but I'm willing to hear you out." Jade wasn't an accomplished wizard like Uncle or Tohru, but totems weren't terribly hard to recognize, especially since she'd been dealing with variations on them for quite a bit of her life.

He rolled up his sleeve to show the bracelet, along with a collection of scars dotting his arm. "It's protection from a demon." He spun it around to show a golden triangle seeming almost chained by the multicolored cords woven together. "I'm not fond of the idea of being possessed again."

Jade winced. "That's... something I can relate to, actually." Shendu, Tarakudo, even, embarrassingly enough, one or two others. It was an incredibly unpleasant feeling. "Wait, but if you've fought demons before, why aren't you an agent? It's really hard to replace firsthand experience with stuff like that."

"I thought about it before," he admitted, rolling his sleeve up again and continuing to push the cart while she followed along beside. "I used to love all the FBI ghost-hunter, type stuff, until I actually met a few of those people." He smiled, wryly. "Kind of killed my enthusiasm for it. Besides, I don't think all the rules and regulations would be good for me. I'm surprisingly reckless, you know."

She looked at his wiry frame and passive demeanor, skeptically. "If you say so."

They continued walking for a bit longer, him referring back to the clipboard and dropping off packages at intervals before eventually squinting up at a clock on the wall, frowning. "Is that time right?"

"Oh, no, that one's actually about ten minutes slow-" he was already sprinting down the hallway before she had finished the sentence.

She was sure there was a proper protocol she was ignoring by chasing after him. "What's going on?"

"I made a promise to myself, that if I could save even a single book from the Library of Alexandria, I would." He shouted back, taking a sharp turn down a right hallway. Jade felt a twist in her stomach as she realized he was heading straight for the Talisman vault.

"What does that even mean?" She was catching up after his head start, but with those long legs it took her multiple strides to catch up to his one.

"The Library of Alexandria, a focal point for knowledge in the ancient world, burned to the ground by Caesar's legion, and with it countless volumes of untold stories, art, and priceless historical accounts. I promised myself that if I was ever in a situation where I could save something like that from being destroyed, even a tiny piece of it, I would." He stopped in front of the vault. "Caesar is coming. Alexandria burns."

Jade's agent-issued phone buzzed, and when she took it out to see, the entire screen was covered in black, with only a few simple words emblazoned on the front: 'Out of the shadows, into the light.'

Gunshots rang down the halls, screams accompanying it like some morbid orchestra. After a few minutes of fiddling, Dipper pried the front panel off the vault lock, and connected two bare wires to a bright pink USB stick he pulled out of his pocket. "Hey, Giffany, I would really love it if you unlocked this vault door."

"You would?" A tinny, overexcited voice sounded from the device. It only took a few moments, for the incredibly secure, ultra expensive, vault to click open.

"Thanks, Giffany," Dipper said, hurriedly retrieving the USB and shoving it into his pocket. "I'll take you for a byte to eat later."

"You are so funny. Ha ha ha." Despite not seeming to be attached to anything electrical anymore, the artificial voice from the USB continued its stilted attempt at laughter as he ran into the vault.

Jade hesitated, split between going towards the source of the gunshots and trying to help the screaming people, and stopping Dipper from getting the Talismans. With a resolute shake of her head, she went after Dipper. The Talismans were undeniably awesome, but they were also way too dangerous in the wrong hands.

She reached for her holster as she ran in, but cursed when her hands met empty air. Her gun was in her office, naturally. That particular breach of protocol was one she regretted quite strongly at that point.

Still, she wasn't entirely unarmed. She unzipped a side pocket and grabbed a dried lizard treated with a variety of components she probably shouldn't have been touching with her bare hands. "You left your gun but took the lizard, Jade?" She chastised herself, disbelievingly as she ran. "Your priorities are incredible."

She skidded to a stop when she saw him, leveling the lizard at his back for a well-deserved chi blast. "Don't move."

His hand was already on a talisman, but she couldn't tell which one from that distance. Still, for the moment, he didn't move. "It's Hydra."

"What's Hydra?" Jade asked, suspiciously, creeping closer.

"You ever hear of Captain America? The Red Skull?" He asked, half turning his head to look at her.

"Eyes front," she ordered, shaking the lizard for good measure. He shrugged and obeyed. "You mean like those Nazi guys?"

He nodded, slowly. "They're out there. Teammates, coworkers, sleeper agents waiting for the command to take over the entire installation."

"You're saying Hydra's infiltrated Section Thirteen?" Realistically, she only had one shot before he activated the talisman. If she could get close enough, aim just right, she could knock him out. You know... probably.

Dipper laughed, mirthlessly. "I'm saying they've infiltrated the whole of Shield."

Jade paused, frowning. "That's impossible."

"You're threatening me with a magic lizard so I don't steal the sealed essence of a demon's powers, and you think spies infiltrating a network of spies is impossible?" She had to admit, he had a point.

"Let's say I believe you." She began inching forward again. "Why now? How do you know all this?"

"Two minutes ago, a woman named Natasha Romanov released every file in the Shield database onto the internet, including all of Hydra's secret dealings within the organization. Hydra saw this, panicked, and now they're trying to purge all Shield facilities of non-Hydra personnel, including this one. If you don't let me take these Talismans, they will fall into the hands of literal Nazis," he finished, tone level, but with a frustrated edge to it. "I can get us both out of here. But even with the Talismans, I can't fight an army of spies."

Jade was in range, she could take the shot, knock him out cleanly. But the sounds of gunfire were getting closer, and for all the ridiculous things he said, it never once felt like he was lying. Except, "you knew about this before, though, asking if that clock was right, saying being a mailman got you close to what you wanted." Her grip tightened on the lizard. "How?"

"Because my sister's supposed to die today." His shoulders sagged at the words. "She's supposed to go into work at the Triskelion, and decorate her reports with too many stickers, and smile wide at everyone she sees, wishing them a good day. Then she's supposed to be shot in the back by a Hydra agent."

He pulled the Talisman he was holding out of the cone it was nestled in, tossing it gently to her. She caught it, looking down to see the Dog staring back: invincibility. "I used something called a Time Wish to go back and save her, which I did, but after that, I remembered reading about these in that big dump of Shield files." He began collecting the other Talismans, adding them to a small brown bag he withdrew from his back pocket. "You can believe me, or not: it's up to you."

He gestured to the Talisman in her hand. "You have my defense. If you wanted to, you could stun me, maybe even knock me out, protect the Talismans and walk away. But I'll tell you right now, I'm not leaving without them. I've seen what happens when psychos get access to magic."

Jade kept her weapon trained on him, the fire in his eyes never dimming. After a few moments, she dropped it with a sigh. "Captain Black."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Help me get Captain Black out of here, and I'll... let you go," she explained. It wasn't protocol, obviously, but she was so beyond protocol by that point.

Dipper nodded, not relaxed, but slightly more at ease now that he didn't have a chi blast aimed at his face. "You know where he is?" He asked, rummaging through the bag of Talismans.

"I have a pretty good idea." Captain Black's office was connected directly to the armory for a reason, after all.

He handed her the Rabbit Talisman, the Snake gripped in his other hand. "Then you're driving."

She took the Talisman, feeling the magic vibrating through her as she gripped it. With her other hand, she grabbed his, and a moment after, the slickness of invisibility from the Snake surrounded them.

Her Rabbit enhanced speed got them across the entire compound and to the armory in seconds. Unfortunately, it was only after they'd already arrived and saw a group of decidedly unfriendly looking agents trying to break in, Jade realized she didn't actually have something resembling a plan.

"Friends of yours?" Dipper muttered invisibly beside her.

"You cannot keep out Hydra forever, Captain Black," one of the agents shouted at the stubbornly closed armory door. "Cut off one head, two more will take its place."

Jade grimaced. "Apparently not." Her expression hardened. "Hand me the Ox."

Dipper gave the Talisman without preamble.

With enhanced speed and strength, Jade didn't fight the Hydra spies; she decimated them. When the blur that was 'Agent Chan' finally stopped, there was a tidy pile of unconscious Nazis up against one wall.

"Definitely way too dangerous to leave these lying around," Dipper commented.

"You know the wise seek strength from within," she recited, flipping a Talisman experimentally in the air. "But I totally missed this."

"Happy to hear it," Dipper responded, dryly. "Time crunch?"

"Right." Jade went to the vault door and knocked, an action that might have been polite if she wasn't still using the Ox Talisman. As it was, the vault door smashed inward, narrowly missing the startled man inside. "Uh, rescue team is here?" She said, embarrassed.

It was highly unlikely, Dipper reasoned, for that to have happened before, but somehow, with Captain Black's expression, it seemed like it had.

Captain Black sighed, wearily. Standing up and walking out of the armory with what seemed like half its contents in tow. "I won't bother asking if you're Hydra, Jade. Even they're not crazy enough to recruit you."

"Hey, I would make a great double agent," Jade protested. "The fact you don't suspect me just proves it."

"Double agent wouldn't talk so much," he muttered, gruffly, but with a genial edge.

"I thought the same thing," Dipper agreed, dropping the invisibility the Snake Talisman had been shrouding him in.

With a speed that would have made the Rabbit Talisman jealous, however, Dipper suddenly found himself face to face with the barrel of a gun Captain Black had leveled against him. "Who is this?" He asked coldly, though whether the question was directed at him or Jade, Dipper couldn't tell.

Jade waved her arms, visibly alarmed. "Fiendly, that's a friendly." She hesitated. "You know, probably."

"Not helping," Dipper groused, gun still very much pointed at him.

"He's not Hydra, at least," Jade explained. "He got the Talismans. He helped me get to you."

Begrudgingly, Captain Black lowered his arm. "Fine. Honestly, even a 'probably' friendly is better than what we've got right now. Especially if he's packing Talismans."

Thankful for the moment that his life was no longer in imminent danger, Dipper reshuffled the Talismans, taking back the Ox and pulling the Snake out once again. "They've probably shut down all the elevators in and out. I can turn them back on with Giffany if we get close, but there's gonna be a lot of Hydra between us and them."

Jade and Captain Black shared a look. "There might be another way..." she suggested, chuckling softly at some unknown joke.

They took the stairs.

It wasn't totally free from Hydra, but clearly the better choice. Honestly, Dipper was a bit embarrassed he hadn't thought of it before.

Finally exiting out onto the city streets, no blood, no screams, was a surreal experience. It was amazing just how contained the whole thing was. Oh, the fall of Shield would be on the news before nightfall, there was no doubt of that. But outside Section Thirteen, everything seemed so... normal.

"What..." Jade bit her lip, looking up at Captain Black. "What's the protocol for this?" All her coworkers, all her friends, even the paperwork, as much as she'd loathed it, was gone forever. There was no more Section Thirteen, no more Shield at all. What was she supposed to do?

He sighed, taking his phone out of his pocket, removing the sim card, and shutting it off. "Stand down. Request backup. Wait for orders."

"Oh." Jade nodded. "What are we gonna do instead?"

The captain ruffled Jade's hair, looking every bit like an affectionate uncle. "I'm going to check around my connections, see if any lines haven't gone dead. You loop Jackie into this. If you can get a hold of any of the J Team, do that, too. Hydra may not have the Talismans, but Shendu's not the only magic problem we've dealt with, and I don't want to see Chi Vampire Nazis, or Chupacabra Nazis any more than you do."

Dipper had already begun walking away before Jade's voice stopped him. "What are you gonna do?"

He hesitated, seeming to hold the bag of Talismans a little closer to his chest for a moment before answering. "I'm going to hug my sister, and tell her I love her, then I'm going to go home do the same to my wife." He sighed. "After that, I'm gonna throw myself at a few more apocalypses."

He couldn't have been much older than her, but the sheer weariness in his face added more than a few years.

"This wasn't the only apocalypse you saw happening in the future?" She asked, disbelievingly.

A dark chuckle emanated from his being. "Not even close."

Jade considered for a moment. "You wouldn't happen to need a couple former secret agents, a pro wrestler, a master thief, two chi wizards, and an archaeologist, would you?"

He stared at her, quizzically. "What?"

"Come on." She reached out a hand. "I'll introduce you to the J Team."

He looked at the hand, then at her, indecision warring on his face. "It's going to be incredibly dangerous," he warned. "And we're going to have to do some definitely not legal things."

The skeptical raise of her eyebrow was answer enough.

Finally, Dipper relented, taking her hand. "This is gonna be a tough one to explain to my family."

"No kidding." Jade snorted. "I'm out of a job now. You know what the rent on my apartment is? Moving back in with Uncle is not gonna be fun."

"Actually," Dipper rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger in consideration. "It won't be any Section Thirteen, but I'm not exactly hurting on funds, so a home base might not be out of the picture."

"I'm saved," Jade cheered. "But what kind of place were you thinking?"

They moved down the street, watching as more and more people had their faces glued to their phones, the fallout of Hydra's revelation finally hitting mainstream. Still, Dipper paid them no mind. "Ideally, it'd have some kind of business as a front, to avoid suspicion. Like I said, we won't be dealing strictly legally. I'd almost want it to be something like the Mystery Shack, for nostalgia's sake, but that's not exactly inconspicuous..."

Jade had no idea what the 'Mystery Shack' was, but questions like that were reserved for after she told Jackie one of the last remaining bastions to a free world safe from demons had been taken over by Nazis.

It was possible she was in shock about the whole thing.

"How do you feel about a cafe?" Dipper asked, temporarily shaking Jade from her musings.

Captain Black laid a hand on her shoulder, stepping forward to interrupt. "It's been a long day and we're being followed. How about we table this discussion for later?"

Dipper's eyes widened. "We're being followed?"

"Wow, you're really not used to the whole spy thing, huh?" Jade remarked. "This part actually happens all the time, we can take care of it."

"It'd probably be better to split up and reconvene sometime later." Captain Black reached out a hand. "It'll take some time to get our team together, anyway."

Dipper took it. "Oh yeah, totally. That's fine."

"Until next time. We'll be in touch." The two spies walked away, and Dipper looked down at his palm to see Captain Black's sim card, placed there during the handshake.

Dipper smiled down at it, pocketing it before walking away in a different direction.

"I don't understand," Giffany sounded from the USB in his pocket. "The cafe, the secret base, it is all purchased and fully operational. Why not simply tell them you came there to recruit them?"

"Short answer? I need them to like me," Dipper replied, easily, taking out his phone and sorting through the contacts. "Besides, no one's gonna sign up for another spy agency right after theirs crumbles to the ground. As long as they believe it's their idea, though, everyone's happy."

"And the Talismans?" Giffany asked next.

"Bait to the hook, mainly, but I can't deny they make a powerful trump card." He finally found the contact he wanted and pressed it, holding the phone up to his ear.

His wife picked up on the second ring. "Oh Gary, I told you to stop calling here, just cause my husband's out of town."

"I know you have caller ID, Paz," Dipper responded, flatly.

"You never let me have any fun," Pacifica faux-whined. "How did it go?"

"Clean sweep. Looks like that cafe's not going to be a waste after all," Dipper couldn't resist the urge to rub it in, ever so slightly.

"I still say you should have gone for a more upscale front, but if I can't manage a simple cafe into five star ratings, I'll eat my brilliantly planned out and organized floor plan designs." The flush of pride in her voice was evident.

Technically, having a business that was too successful made it dangerous as a front, but since every aspect of the plan was already incredibly dangerous, why take away something Pacifica liked?

"You coming home?" She asked, next, breaking Dipper from his thoughts.

"Are you kidding? Of course." Dipper grinned. "Phase one went perfectly; we gotta celebrate."

Twelve Talismans. Seven demon hunters.

It wouldn't be enough, Dipper considered. But it was a start.


End file.
